This essay contends that one of the privileges of femininity in rationalized instrumental culture is an aesthetic freedom — the freedom to play with shape and color on the body, don various styles ...
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This essay contends that one of the privileges of femininity in rationalized instrumental culture is an aesthetic freedom — the freedom to play with shape and color on the body, don various styles and looks — and through them exhibit and imagine unreal possibilities. Such female imagination has liberating possibilities because it subverts and unsettles the order of respectable, functional rationality in a world where that rationality supports domination. In the context of patriarchal consumer capitalism, however, such liberating aspects of clothing fantasy are intertwined with oppressing moments. This essay asks how women’s pleasure in clothes can be described. It adopts a method derived from Luce Irigaray in an attempt to extricate the liberating and valuable in women’s experience of clothes from the exploitative and oppressive.Less

Women Recovering Our Clothes

Iris Marion Young

Published in print: 2005-01-13

This essay contends that one of the privileges of femininity in rationalized instrumental culture is an aesthetic freedom — the freedom to play with shape and color on the body, don various styles and looks — and through them exhibit and imagine unreal possibilities. Such female imagination has liberating possibilities because it subverts and unsettles the order of respectable, functional rationality in a world where that rationality supports domination. In the context of patriarchal consumer capitalism, however, such liberating aspects of clothing fantasy are intertwined with oppressing moments. This essay asks how women’s pleasure in clothes can be described. It adopts a method derived from Luce Irigaray in an attempt to extricate the liberating and valuable in women’s experience of clothes from the exploitative and oppressive.

This essay explores some aspects of the cultural construction of breasts in a male-dominated society, seeking a positive women’s voice for breasted experience. It begins with a discussion of the ...
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This essay explores some aspects of the cultural construction of breasts in a male-dominated society, seeking a positive women’s voice for breasted experience. It begins with a discussion of the dominant culture’s objectification of breasts. Relying on Irigaray’s suggestive ideas about women’s sexuality and an alternative metaphysics not constructed around the concept of object, an experience of breast movement and sensitivity from the point of view of the female subject is presented. It asks how women’s breasts might be experienced in the absence of an objectifying male gaze, and discusses how breasts are a scandal for patriarchy because they disrupt the border between motherhood and sexuality. Finally, the question of objectification is revisited through reflections on a woman’s encounter with the surgeon’s knife at her breast.Less

Breasted Experience: * : The Look and the Feeling

Iris Marion Young

Published in print: 2005-01-13

This essay explores some aspects of the cultural construction of breasts in a male-dominated society, seeking a positive women’s voice for breasted experience. It begins with a discussion of the dominant culture’s objectification of breasts. Relying on Irigaray’s suggestive ideas about women’s sexuality and an alternative metaphysics not constructed around the concept of object, an experience of breast movement and sensitivity from the point of view of the female subject is presented. It asks how women’s breasts might be experienced in the absence of an objectifying male gaze, and discusses how breasts are a scandal for patriarchy because they disrupt the border between motherhood and sexuality. Finally, the question of objectification is revisited through reflections on a woman’s encounter with the surgeon’s knife at her breast.

This essay explores the ambivalence of the values of house and home. It agrees with feminist critics such as Luce Irigaray and Simone de Beauvoir that the comforts and supports of house and home ...
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This essay explores the ambivalence of the values of house and home. It agrees with feminist critics such as Luce Irigaray and Simone de Beauvoir that the comforts and supports of house and home historically come at women’s expense. Women serve, nurture, and maintain so that the bodies and souls of men and children gain confidence and expansive subjectivity to make their mark on the world. However, this homey role also deprives women of support for their own identity and projects. The essay challenges a group of feminist texts whose writers all reject the idea of the home as inappropriately totalizing and imperialist, questioning the wholesale rejection of an ideal of the home for feminism.Less

House and Home: * : Feminist Variations on a Theme

Iris Marion Young

Published in print: 2005-01-13

This essay explores the ambivalence of the values of house and home. It agrees with feminist critics such as Luce Irigaray and Simone de Beauvoir that the comforts and supports of house and home historically come at women’s expense. Women serve, nurture, and maintain so that the bodies and souls of men and children gain confidence and expansive subjectivity to make their mark on the world. However, this homey role also deprives women of support for their own identity and projects. The essay challenges a group of feminist texts whose writers all reject the idea of the home as inappropriately totalizing and imperialist, questioning the wholesale rejection of an ideal of the home for feminism.

This book offers a sustained analysis of the concept grounding Irigaray's thought: the constitutive yet incalculable interval of sexual difference. In an extension of Irigaray's project, it takes up ...
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This book offers a sustained analysis of the concept grounding Irigaray's thought: the constitutive yet incalculable interval of sexual difference. In an extension of Irigaray's project, it takes up her formulation of the interval as a way of rereading Aristotle's concept of topos and Bergson's concept of duration. A sexed hierarchy is diagnosed at the heart of Aristotle's and Bergson's presentations. Yet beyond that phallocentrism, this book points out how Aristotle's theory of topos as a sensible relation between two bodies that differ in being and Bergson's intuition of duration as an incalculable threshold of becoming are indispensable to the feminist effort to think about sexual difference. Reading Irigaray with Aristotle and Bergson, it is argued that the interval cannot be grasped as a space between two identities; it must be characterized as the sensible threshold of becoming, constitutive of the very identity of beings. The interval is the place of the possibility of sexed subjectivity and intersubjectivity, and is also a threshold of the becoming of sexed forces.Less

The Interval : Relation and Becoming in Irigaray, Aristotle, and Bergson

Rebecca Hill

Published in print: 2012-03-14

This book offers a sustained analysis of the concept grounding Irigaray's thought: the constitutive yet incalculable interval of sexual difference. In an extension of Irigaray's project, it takes up her formulation of the interval as a way of rereading Aristotle's concept of topos and Bergson's concept of duration. A sexed hierarchy is diagnosed at the heart of Aristotle's and Bergson's presentations. Yet beyond that phallocentrism, this book points out how Aristotle's theory of topos as a sensible relation between two bodies that differ in being and Bergson's intuition of duration as an incalculable threshold of becoming are indispensable to the feminist effort to think about sexual difference. Reading Irigaray with Aristotle and Bergson, it is argued that the interval cannot be grasped as a space between two identities; it must be characterized as the sensible threshold of becoming, constitutive of the very identity of beings. The interval is the place of the possibility of sexed subjectivity and intersubjectivity, and is also a threshold of the becoming of sexed forces.

This concluding chapter traces the relationship between the presentation of the interval as relation addressed in Part One of the book and the presentation of the interval as becoming sketched in ...
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This concluding chapter traces the relationship between the presentation of the interval as relation addressed in Part One of the book and the presentation of the interval as becoming sketched in Part Two of the book. It argues that the interval is difference, the threshold from which space and time and matter and form are engendered. While Irigaray tends to focus on the interval as the threshold that engenders a non-hierarchical relationship between woman and man, she also affirms the interval as difference itself, if she is read carefully. The concept of the interval is conceived, via a radicalization of Aristotle's account of place, as a sensible relation. This relational concept of difference cannot be presented as such, as Bergson's thinking of duration demonstrates that the interval remains in becoming as an open threshold of potentiality.Less

Conclusion: Interval as Relation, Interval as Becoming

Rebecca Hill

Published in print: 2012-03-14

This concluding chapter traces the relationship between the presentation of the interval as relation addressed in Part One of the book and the presentation of the interval as becoming sketched in Part Two of the book. It argues that the interval is difference, the threshold from which space and time and matter and form are engendered. While Irigaray tends to focus on the interval as the threshold that engenders a non-hierarchical relationship between woman and man, she also affirms the interval as difference itself, if she is read carefully. The concept of the interval is conceived, via a radicalization of Aristotle's account of place, as a sensible relation. This relational concept of difference cannot be presented as such, as Bergson's thinking of duration demonstrates that the interval remains in becoming as an open threshold of potentiality.

This book, a critique and overview of contemporary post-structuralist theory, explores the Kantian and phenomenological background of Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault and Irigaray, and raises some key ...
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This book, a critique and overview of contemporary post-structuralist theory, explores the Kantian and phenomenological background of Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault and Irigaray, and raises some key questions and issues in critical theory. Is it still possible to sustain a transcendental critical project? How do such projects fare in the current terrain of cultural studies and anti-representationalism? The book contributes to ethical and critical theory; situates poststructuralism in its philosophical background and in the sustained problematic of the enlightenment; and offers a critique of various appeals made to a would-be post-metaphysical or post-human culture.Less

Philosophy and Post-structuralist Theory : From Kant to Deleuze

Claire Colebrook

Published in print: 2005-05-13

This book, a critique and overview of contemporary post-structuralist theory, explores the Kantian and phenomenological background of Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault and Irigaray, and raises some key questions and issues in critical theory. Is it still possible to sustain a transcendental critical project? How do such projects fare in the current terrain of cultural studies and anti-representationalism? The book contributes to ethical and critical theory; situates poststructuralism in its philosophical background and in the sustained problematic of the enlightenment; and offers a critique of various appeals made to a would-be post-metaphysical or post-human culture.

Efforts to separate the speech of ‘the man himself’ from that of ‘unmanly’ others are implied in ancient rhetorical and philosophical treatises. This chapter traces such efforts from Donatus, through ...
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Efforts to separate the speech of ‘the man himself’ from that of ‘unmanly’ others are implied in ancient rhetorical and philosophical treatises. This chapter traces such efforts from Donatus, through Cicero, to Aristotle and Plato, in an attempt to define the ontological status of feminine discourses in Roman comedy. The chôra, the indefinite (Derrida) and thus feminine (Kristeva, Irigaray) space of becoming in Plato's theory of creation emerges as the pivotal concept of this chapter and the most useful metaphor for the imprint of gender on the language of Roman comedy. The logic of the chôra that sanctions thinking beyond ‘either or’ and ‘neither nor’ allows us to embrace the interplay of (fe)male identities in the scripts of Plautus and Terence.Less

Father Tongue, Mother Tongue: The Back‐Story and the Forth‐Story

Dorota M. Dutsch

Published in print: 2008-08-07

Efforts to separate the speech of ‘the man himself’ from that of ‘unmanly’ others are implied in ancient rhetorical and philosophical treatises. This chapter traces such efforts from Donatus, through Cicero, to Aristotle and Plato, in an attempt to define the ontological status of feminine discourses in Roman comedy. The chôra, the indefinite (Derrida) and thus feminine (Kristeva, Irigaray) space of becoming in Plato's theory of creation emerges as the pivotal concept of this chapter and the most useful metaphor for the imprint of gender on the language of Roman comedy. The logic of the chôra that sanctions thinking beyond ‘either or’ and ‘neither nor’ allows us to embrace the interplay of (fe)male identities in the scripts of Plautus and Terence.

This book introduces historical and contemporary philosophical reflections on love. It brings together philosophy with cultural analysis to provide an account of conventional theories of love as well ...
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This book introduces historical and contemporary philosophical reflections on love. It brings together philosophy with cultural analysis to provide an account of conventional theories of love as well as the controversial reformulations evident in same-sex desire, cross-cultural love and internet romance. Starting with Plato, but focusing especially on contemporary European philosophy, the book introduces figures such as Nietzsche, Beauvoir, Irigaray, Derrida and Fanon. Explaining these philosophical approaches, it also engages with cultural productions — ranging from Sappho to Frankenstein, and from Hiroshima Mon Amour to Desperate Housewives — enabling an exchange between philosophical and cultural theories. Love stories are also central to this interdisciplinary book, revealing the ethical and the political as well as the personal implications of lover's discourses. Embracing both the sentimental and the political, this deconstructive reading discloses the paradoxes, conflicts and intensities of the love relation.Less

Philosophy and Love : From Plato to Popular Culture

Linnell Secomb

Published in print: 2007-05-11

This book introduces historical and contemporary philosophical reflections on love. It brings together philosophy with cultural analysis to provide an account of conventional theories of love as well as the controversial reformulations evident in same-sex desire, cross-cultural love and internet romance. Starting with Plato, but focusing especially on contemporary European philosophy, the book introduces figures such as Nietzsche, Beauvoir, Irigaray, Derrida and Fanon. Explaining these philosophical approaches, it also engages with cultural productions — ranging from Sappho to Frankenstein, and from Hiroshima Mon Amour to Desperate Housewives — enabling an exchange between philosophical and cultural theories. Love stories are also central to this interdisciplinary book, revealing the ethical and the political as well as the personal implications of lover's discourses. Embracing both the sentimental and the political, this deconstructive reading discloses the paradoxes, conflicts and intensities of the love relation.

This book explores the work of Luce Irigaray, one of the most influential and controversial figures in feminist thought—although Irigaray herself disclaims the term ‘feminism’. Irigaray's work stands ...
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This book explores the work of Luce Irigaray, one of the most influential and controversial figures in feminist thought—although Irigaray herself disclaims the term ‘feminism’. Irigaray's work stands at the intersection of contemporary debates concerned with culture, gender and religion, but her ideas have not yet been presented in a comprehensive way from the perspective of religious studies. The book examines the development of religious themes from Irigaray's initial work, Speculum of the Other Woman, in which she rejects traditional forms of western religions, to her more recent explorations of eastern religions. Irigaray's ideas on love, the divine, an ethics of sexual difference and normative heterosexuality are analysed. These analyses are placed in the context of the reception of Irigaray's work by secular feminists such as Judith Butler, Drucilla Cornell and Elizabeth Grosz, as well as by feminists in religious studies such as Pamela Sue Anderson, Ellen Armour, Amy Hollywood and Grace Jantzen. Most of these thinkers reject Irigaray's proposals for women's adoption of gender-specific qualities as a form of gender essentialism. Finally, Irigaray's own spiritual path, which has been influenced by eastern religions, specifically the disciplines of yoga and tantra in Hinduism and Buddhism, is evaluated in the light of recent theoretical developments in orientalism and postcolonialism.Less

Divine Love : Luce Irigaray, Women, Gender, and Religion

Morny Joy

Published in print: 2006-09-30

This book explores the work of Luce Irigaray, one of the most influential and controversial figures in feminist thought—although Irigaray herself disclaims the term ‘feminism’. Irigaray's work stands at the intersection of contemporary debates concerned with culture, gender and religion, but her ideas have not yet been presented in a comprehensive way from the perspective of religious studies. The book examines the development of religious themes from Irigaray's initial work, Speculum of the Other Woman, in which she rejects traditional forms of western religions, to her more recent explorations of eastern religions. Irigaray's ideas on love, the divine, an ethics of sexual difference and normative heterosexuality are analysed. These analyses are placed in the context of the reception of Irigaray's work by secular feminists such as Judith Butler, Drucilla Cornell and Elizabeth Grosz, as well as by feminists in religious studies such as Pamela Sue Anderson, Ellen Armour, Amy Hollywood and Grace Jantzen. Most of these thinkers reject Irigaray's proposals for women's adoption of gender-specific qualities as a form of gender essentialism. Finally, Irigaray's own spiritual path, which has been influenced by eastern religions, specifically the disciplines of yoga and tantra in Hinduism and Buddhism, is evaluated in the light of recent theoretical developments in orientalism and postcolonialism.

Hegel's seminal interpretation of Sophocles in the Phenomenology of Spirit dramatizes a clash between family and State, the individual and the polis. This chapter investigates the legacy of this ...
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Hegel's seminal interpretation of Sophocles in the Phenomenology of Spirit dramatizes a clash between family and State, the individual and the polis. This chapter investigates the legacy of this Hegelian reading in French post-war debates about ethics and politics. Lacan's Antigone flees the state and its moral dictates to take refuge in an ethics of ‘pure desire’. Antigone's resistance to Creon represents a resistance to the political as such. In his student Luce Irigaray, however, Lacan finds a critic all too anxious to expose the dangerous ideological leanings of Lacan's apolitical Greeks. Derrida's re-reading of Hegel's Antigone exposes the exclusionary politics of Hegel's philhellenism. Hegel's investment in Greek culture is predicated on the construction of an internal other — the Jew. This section explores how an opposition between Hellenism and Hebraism lies behind both Hegel's and Derrida's notion of citizenship in the Antigone.Less

Antigone between Ethics and Politics

Miriam Leonard

Published in print: 2005-10-06

Hegel's seminal interpretation of Sophocles in the Phenomenology of Spirit dramatizes a clash between family and State, the individual and the polis. This chapter investigates the legacy of this Hegelian reading in French post-war debates about ethics and politics. Lacan's Antigone flees the state and its moral dictates to take refuge in an ethics of ‘pure desire’. Antigone's resistance to Creon represents a resistance to the political as such. In his student Luce Irigaray, however, Lacan finds a critic all too anxious to expose the dangerous ideological leanings of Lacan's apolitical Greeks. Derrida's re-reading of Hegel's Antigone exposes the exclusionary politics of Hegel's philhellenism. Hegel's investment in Greek culture is predicated on the construction of an internal other — the Jew. This section explores how an opposition between Hellenism and Hebraism lies behind both Hegel's and Derrida's notion of citizenship in the Antigone.